Wendy Gers

Wendy Gers is an Art Historian and Independent Curator specialised in modern and contemporary ceramic art and design, Wendy Gers is a Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Recent curatorial projects include the First Central China Ceramics Biennale, Henan (2016-2017); Post-colonialism?, Tel Aviv, Israel (2016-2017); and the critically acclaimed ‘Terra-Nova’ edition of the Taiwan Ceramics Biennale (2014) which attracted over 660 000 visitors. Her curatorial leadership was celebrated by the City Press’s inclusion of Gers in its list of 100 ‘World-Class South Africans’ (2014).

Gers has authored numerous museum catalogues and over 30 scholarly journal articles, translations, book and exhibition reviews, and has published in African Arts, Image and Text, Art South Africa, Ceramic Review, La Révue de la Céramique et du Verre, etc. In 2016 her acclaimed monograph on Southern African Potteries operational between 1880 and 1980, Scorched Earth (Jacana Media, 395 pages), was launched. The landmark anthology The Ceramics Reader (Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2017) includes a chapter by Gers.  

Gers has delivered public lectures and key note addresses in 16 countries, and organised panels at conferences, biennales and colloquia in Africa, Australia, East Asia, Europe, the Middle east & the USA.

Over the past decade she has taught in various French tertiary art schools, and between 2015-2018 was Academic Director of the research laboratory, La Céramique Comme Experience (CCE) at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Arts, Limoges, France.

The recipient of a BA; an Advanced University Diploma in Information Studies, and a MA in History of Art (cum laude), from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, Gers is presently completing her Doctoral studies with the University of Sunderland.  Current research interests include best practices in arts administration, curatorial theory, social justice, sustainability & new technologies in contemporary art, craft & design.